The Inspector Walter Darriteau Murder Mysteries - Books 1-4 by David Carter (best finance books of all time .txt) 📕

well all go home! I’ll tell Mrs West to prepare the redundancy papers.’

‘Give it a chance!’

‘Conclusions reached! Conclusions reached!’

Karen and Walter glanced at one another and shared a look.

‘Not that long,’ she said.

‘And what conclusions are they?’

‘You can have them in audio, audio with visual, text, or printed.’

‘Just get on with it,’ he said, becoming annoyed that it was interrupting his thinking time.

Karen selected audio with visual and the generated fairy was back and talking.

‘There is absolutely no proof there is any connection between the Rushnell case and the Sadie case.’

‘Tell us something we don’t know! And who told it the girl’s name is Sadie?’

Karen pulled a face. Didn’t say a thing.

The monster hadn’t finished.

‘Sadie originates from overseas, that could be first generation, we do not know for certain, but if she is an overseas student, a visitor to the UK, she may have been studying at one the many Chester English language schools. In that case she will be missing from class. Would you like me to produce an up-to-date list of possible educational establishments?’

Karen and Walter shared another look.

‘It’s a thought, Guv.’

‘Not the worst idea in the world, I’ll give you that.’

‘Do you want the list?’

‘Sure, and does it have anything else to add?’

As if hearing the question the monster began again.

‘According to the post mortem Sadie used spectacles, but they were missing.’

‘Tell us something we don’t already know!’

‘She may have obtained them from a local optician. They should all be visited and checked. Do you wish me to prepare an up-to-date list of such opticians?’

‘No good,’ said Walter. ‘What do we do? Visit them armed with a dreadful picture of a Chinese woman who may or may not have visited a year or two ago, and even that is unlikely. Who in God’s name is going to remember? Imagine the wasted man-hours in that? Mrs West would be furious.’

‘Give it a chance, Guv.’

The monster still hadn’t finished. ‘As for Donald Rushnell, the thing that stands out about this person is his very ordinariness. Statistics show that citizens who are, on the face of it, particularly ordinary, often have another side to them that is anything but ordinary.’

‘Like what?’ said Walter.

Karen shrugged, pressed the suggestion button again.

‘You need to input more information and intelligence about all the characters in this case for me to solve the crime.’

Walter harrumphed and said, ‘We need to input more information and intelligence into here,’ and he tapped the side of his head loudly, ‘and I will solve the crime.’

‘And the language schools, Guv?’

‘Get Gibbons and Hector on it PDQ.’

Karen broadly smiled. One up for the monster.

WHEN MR PRYCE HEARD and saw what had happened to his star asset he was furious.

‘How could you be such a fucking idiot?’ he yelled through the building.

‘She nearly bit my bloody hand off, boss!’ pleaded Man Two, displaying his still bleeding paw before the boss’s eyes.

‘You didn’t have to smash her fucking face in!’

‘Sorry, boss. I didn’t think.’

‘No! You don’t think, that’s your problem. There’ll be a big stoppage in wages.’

Man Two looked suitably downcast.

Pryce turned to Brinton.

‘We can’t send her like that. Harry simply wouldn’t pay. Waste of time. You’ll have to send a substitute. The slightly thinner of the two fat ones.’

Brinton nodded and said, ‘I’m on it.’

Pryce turned back to the damaged unit. Grabbed her wrist, pushed her against the wall. Jabbed his huge hand around her neck. Jerked her head back against the breezeblock wall, and squeezed.

‘I don’t know whether you understand me, you thick Oriental whore, but if there is any repetition of that, if you attack anyone else ever again, you’ll be down the road. For good. Make myself clear?’

‘Don’t think she understands English, boss,’ said Man One, still holding the wrist of the petite unit who had remained silent throughout.

‘She’ll understand this!’ said Pryce, applying pressure to her dainty throat.

The unit looked suitably terrified. Couldn’t breathe. Thought she’d better nod. Pryce looked deep into her dark eyes. Nodded too, and smiled. She understands well enough, and they understood each other. It would be her last chance.

Pryce said, ‘When your nose is fixed I’m going to make sure you get what’s coming to you.’

The bloody nosed unit nodded again through the pain.

Brinton was back with the Manchester substitute. God alone knows what Harry would make of her. Pryce finally relaxed his grip. The taller unit with the smashed nose gulped air.

‘Here!’ said Pryce, ‘take this worthless piece of shit away before I lose my temper,’ and he threw her into Brinton’s arms, as he passed over the substitute unit to Man One.

‘All right, show’s over,’ said Brinton, ‘let’s get back to some semblance of normality,’ and he nodded the couriers away. ‘Come on you!’ he snapped, tugging the lead and jerking the damaged unit down the corridor. He paused and took out his big bunch of keys and unlocked the doors and tugged her on through, and on again to another set of solid locked doors, and through those and onward into the main body of the vast building.

Thirty-Two

Yet Kwai, or Beautiful as a Rose, or, to give her her full name, Yet Kwai Dang, was born in the outskirts of the central Chinese city of Chungking in the Yangtze basin. The city was now known as Chongqing, or Yu, to give it its official abbreviation.

On the day Yet Kwai first emerged into the world her father’s shoulders slumped. Another damned girl! What good were girls to him? Her father hated her from the very first moment and she never stood a chance. Her mother was the only friend she ever had in the big wide world, and it was her mother who called her Beautiful as a Rose.

The Dang family were gangsters, always had been in their own mean-spirited way, a deeply ingrained family trade they practised regardless of what government or political party happened to be in power, and they always needed added muscle, operating on the fringes of, or just outside the law.